Escape

We all should know the importance of escape.

Saturday agenda-escape from Miami

No, that's not the name of the event I did. It's actually the Pilot 5k but Jon & I escaped from Miami to do this event on the Florida west coast. I thought I was doomed to just training for my required tune up but he came through again. I was hoping for an easy time but that did not come to fruition; I had to battle. Considering that I was sick for about a week & had to curtail my training, I had to resort to strategy. While Jon was in the lead pack (3), I latched onto the 2nd wave. However, I struggled to stay with the master pack (4 including myself) for most of the race, while dodging this guy who kept drifting & cutting me off. By the grace of God, I got past all of them in the final stretch using my patented master kick. We aint washed up yet. The master pack finished 4th, 5th, 6th & 7th! In fact, except for 3rd place, the top 7 slots were 35+ in age.

Sunday agenda-escape to Miami

Yes, that is the name of the event I did. However, not alone. This year, PR racing offered both a sprint & Olympic for individuals, the latter for relays. I selected a team of 3 runners. However, since this is a triathlon, 2 had to go out of their element. Adam lead the team by swimming. Although he can do all three disciplines & has competed solo in the past, he was desperately needed as neither Gene nor I can swim. As for me, this was my 1st time on the bike in this event. Gene was in his element but said he hadn't competed in a 10k since his younger teen days. We all were put to the test, especially since we discovered that Felipe formed a team to rival us. Worse, he was gonna be in his element, the run! I already assumed we were gonna lose to his team & prior to the race, told the team we must hustle to earn second place. In fact, I thought we might only get the finishers medals. Well, we got 2nd place male relay (to our surprise) and 5th out of 41 total teams, regardless of category. What was amazing and shocking was that we lost only by about a minute (not destroyed) and it was not by Felipe's team (they got 3rd). Considering that Adam is not really a swimmer & was actually preparing for the Chicago marathon next week, he still swam within the average times. I got my personal best on the bike for a 40k, remarkable because I had 8 hills (2 laps over 2 bridges), wet ground & westbound head wind to contend with. Get this, my cycling was the best of all male teams, 5th of 41 teams; wooooo! Gene was 2nd only to Felipe, & both were the best of the 41 teams & i believe the only ones to break 50 minutes. I am so proud of the team, named triple sweat threat, a variation of an undefeated team I formed way back.